I strained my brain and finally remembered the game I'd played recently that had combat like that: Might and Magic X. Which is curious since the old school Might and Magic games had a more D&D style setup with individual character initiative determining order. To me, we-go-you-go turn based is more for board games and strategy games and not really the best route for an RPG. Losing individual character initiative feels like a step backwards, and from games made over 30 years ago that that.

Here's how I depicted the combat based on the text, and compared to the classic...
You could hit A, A, A, A, D, Cast MIBL, D, but while you are hitting each command, each character's actions are carried out - any actions/animations are played and you don't have to wait for them to finish. The only difference being that it sounds like once you've finished your party's attacks, you wait for the enemies' attack phase. Doesn't sound like the enemies attack you while you are setting out your commands.
So, technically, I understood "phase"-based as accurate; your party carry out their commands, then the enemy carries out their commands. And so on. Seems to be only a minor straying from the classic, as functionally it's pretty much the same other than seeing your attack resolution all together, then seeing the enemy attack resolution all together...

Right now, they have no control over that. The payment option is whatever Kickstarter wants, and for some reason they switched from Amazon to this thing they're using now. Paypal doesn't allow Kickstarter projects to use their service until the project is completely funded.

Right now, they have no control over that. The payment option is whatever Kickstarter wants, and for some reason they switched from Amazon to this thing they're using now. Paypal doesn't allow Kickstarter projects to use their service until the project is completely funded.

Seems silly of Kickstarter to drop Amazon as a payment option for potential backers when they require project creators to use Amazon Payments.

AFAIK, Kickstarter is in the process of phasing out Amazon Payments to Stripe, because the payment service Kickstarter is built around (promise funds at one date, deliver them at a later date) is being phased out by Amazon.

Last I checked, kickstarter creators could still jump through the hoops to have an amazon payment kickstarter, but this may be gone now. It was, before, a kickstarter creator choice.

It's a little messy for Kickstarter to offer the model of "you commit funds one month, and they're MAYBE collected the next month" with some payment services, like paypal. That doesn't mean people haven't found ways to add paypal funding, though it's much cleaner after the kickstarter looks certain to meet its baseline goal.

thebruce wrote:Here's how I depicted the combat based on the text, and compared to the classic...
You could hit A, A, A, A, D, Cast MIBL, D, but while you are hitting each command, each character's actions are carried out - any actions/animations are played and you don't have to wait for them to finish. The only difference being that it sounds like once you've finished your party's attacks, you wait for the enemies' attack phase. Doesn't sound like the enemies attack you while you are setting out your commands.
So, technically, I understood "phase"-based as accurate; your party carry out their commands, then the enemy carries out their commands. And so on. Seems to be only a minor straying from the classic, as functionally it's pretty much the same other than seeing your attack resolution all together, then seeing the enemy attack resolution all together...

Yes, it's the same other than not being phased. You don't seem to understand what phased combat is. What makes The Bard's Tale phased is separation between giving the command and those commands being executed. This separation is to allow all sides to execute their turns simultaneously. Consider, for example, that the order in which you give the commands has no impact on the order in which their carried out. Also that you can not change your mind part way in. The idea behind that is a round happens quickly, and while the actions are shown one at a time for clarity, they'd actually all be happening at the same time. Those qualities make it quite different than The Bard's Tale's phased combat.

What bugs me is that they're trying to call this phased combat when it blatantly isn't. Well, that and they went with a rather weak system. What's wrong with the Final Fantasy X style with individual initiative on an atomic clock? Or how about good old D&D style with rounds and initiative based turn order?

Right, I had forgotten about redoing the entire party's actions. So that would be another difference. It's only phased in that it's your party acting, then it's the enemy. Everything else in their description is 'live' (every command is executed when you commit and move to the next).

And yes, I do understand what 'phased' means, I just forgot a minor factor of the classic interface

I'm well aware that the final result of the proposed BT4 will not be like the classics. There's no way for the battle to play out with every individual enemy and party member's action intermixed based on dexterity - and that was a strategic element that had a hand in determining how you leveled up your characters.

Brother None wrote:That price increase reflects a difference in costs on our end once we got the first prototype. It was not just randomly done, it's just a reflection of reality, these are not mass-produced items.

The boxes are being done by artist Kathleen Kaderabek, individually hand-crafted and numbered. You may remember her from her Pillars of Eternity box

I might have sounded a little snarkier than intended; I wrote that not long after waking up. Glad to see the boxes will be high quality.

The sheer number of assets you need to prepare for the entire Kickstarter campaign is much more intensive than the early days. We've had several original songs created, a handmade reliquary box, a video of in game footage (coming soon), and high definition renders of the creatures. For Wasteland we had none of these things but we did create more for Torment but nothing like the video of in game footage. We certainly put more pressure on ourselves for these latter campaigns.

I backed at $70, but would toss in extra for a copy of Torment. It's a hard choice between the digital content and a new game -- it would have been cool to have a reward level of "all digital content AND choose one inxile game". I backed WL2 early, and BTIV early because I played them as a kid. I didn't try Planescape, but WL2 was fantastic (and the GOTY update looks superb!) so, I'd like to try Numenera. I guess I should have mentioned this when you previewed the reward levels..

I'd toss in a bit more for Guilt Absolution™ too. I confess I used a hex disk editor for 255 charges on my harmonic gems to get through Malefia. Although, it taught me about hex disk editors ...

Tried to back. First KS attempt since they dropped Amazon Payments(which worked without issue, including Wasteland 2). CC process won't complete. Posting here in case others might be having similar issues. Doesn't look like KS will even start on this until after the Early Bard time slot has passed. Here is the trouble ticket and response from KS:
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CC and other info appear correct. Have tried refreshing several times. Trying to do the $20 EARLY BARD GETS THE